Programs
- Center of Research Excellence
- Human Milk Research Biorepository
- Center of Excellence in Therapeutics
- UC Health Milk Bank
- Supporting Premature Infant Nutrition Program
- Rapid Response Unit
The Maternal and Pediatric Precision in Therapeutics (MPRINT) Center of Excellence in Therapeutics at UC San Diego takes a human milk-centered approach to investigate the role of maternal and pediatric therapeutics at intersections of the mother-milk-infant ‘triad’.
Pregnant and lactating women are considered "therapeutic orphans" because they generally have been excluded from clinical drug research and the drug development process. As a consequence, most medications prescribed for pregnant and lactating women lack sufficient safety and efficacy information. Nonetheless, most women take one or more medications during pregnancy and lactation.
There is an urgent need for research at the very intersection of maternal and infant health, so that physicians and healthcare providers can make data-informed recommendations to pregnant and breastfeeding women. It is simply unacceptable that often the default recommendation is to stop breastfeeding just because of insufficient data.
The 2020 Strategic Plan of the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD) at the National Institutes of Health (NIH) prioritizes the support of "research to test and evaluate therapeutics and medical devices used by pregnant and breastfeeding women." One key initiative is the establishment of the Maternal and Pediatric Precision in Therapeutics (MPRINT) Hub. The MPRINT Hub serves "as a national resource for conducting and fostering therapeutics-focused research in obstetrics, lactation, and pediatrics while enhancing inclusion of people with disabilities."
The MPRINT Hub comprises a Knowledge and Research Coordination Center (KRCC) and two Centers of Excellence in Therapeutics (CETs), one at the University of California, San Diego.
The UC San Diego MPRINT CET is entitled “Optimization of Antibiotics in Mothers and Their Breastfed Infants Using Pharmacomicrobiomic and Metabolomic Analyses” and brings together a team of highly experienced and proven collaborative investigators with leadership roles in maternal and pediatric clinical pharmacology, fundamental research methods and technologies.
Across its highly integrated and synergistic components, the UC San Diego MPRINT CET addresses critical barriers in maternal-infant pharmacology:
The UC San Diego MPRINT CET is structured in three projects:
The UC San Diego MPRINT CET is supported by an administrative core and two analytical cores.
The UC San Diego MPRINT CET includes two analytical cores, the Milk Analytics Core (MAC) and the Pharmacometric & Analytical Chemistry Core (PACC), offering services to the MPRINT network and the research community at large.
Are you developing maternal therapeutics and need to know if they are transmitted through human milk or change milk composition, ultimately impacting infant health and development?
Do you need to know if human milk affects the safety and efficacy of pediatric therapeutics you are working on?
The UC San Diego Maternal and Pediatric Precision in Therapeutics (MPRINT) Center of Excellence in Therapeutics (CET) is funded by the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD), part of the National Institutes of Health (NIH).
P50 HD106463: "Optimization of Antibiotics in Mothers and their Breastfed Infants Using Pharmacomicrobiomic and Metabolomic Analyses" (Drs. Tremoulet (contact PI), Bode, Chambers, Nizet, and Tsunoda)